AustLit

Tom Uren trained as a boxer and had hopes of pursuing a career as a professional fighter; instead, he enlisted during the Second World War and was a prisoner of war on the Burma - Thailand Railway. His experiences as a P.O.W. instilled in him a lifelong opposition to militarism and a belief in socialism and peaceful co-existence. At war's end, he joined the Australian Labor Party. In 1972 he became Minister for Urban and Regional Development in the Whitlam Government, setting up the Australian Heritage Commission and the National Estate and creating new national parks. He was a member of the Australian parliament representing the ALP in the seat of Reid from November 1958 to February 1990.